The world of Tzu Chi Nov-Dec 2021 (Vol.138)

TZU CHI 138 49 * This article is extracted from the book “Master Tells Stories”. After everyone heard this story about Buddha’s previous life and the resulting slander and false accusations, they all became fully aware. When Buddha was alive, all the difficulties that he encountered tell us that each person receives good or bad results from the good or bad things he or she did in the past. Everything that happens to us today may have something to do with our past lives. Everything that we do today may have effects in our future lives. Therefore, we must be extremely careful about our own words and actions. Buddha then told about his relationship with Sundari in a previous life. “A long, long time ago, a prostitute knew a certain businessman. They would meet and stroll in the countryside outside the city. In this area, there was a monk who was doing moral cultivation in a grass hut that he had built himself. One day, the monk went into the city, so the prostitute and the businessman went into the hut. They had a quarrel. The businessman killed her and buried her body near the hut.” “The rumour spread that the monk had raped the woman and then killed her. When the king heard the news, he commanded that the monk be arrested and executed. The businessman heard about this and he felt extremely ashamed. After a great deal of inner struggle, he decided to confess to the crime. The king then released the monk and executed the businessman.” “That woman was Sundari, and I was the businessman,” Buddha concluded. “That was evil karma that I created eons ago when I was a common person in the world. Because of that bad karma, I encounter her in each life and whenever I am successful, she always slanders me. The cause that I planted in the past creates this kind of result.”